Melancholic tang poetry on shikumen walls

Somewhere in the labyrinth of shikumen lanes between Jinan Lu (济南路) and Hefei Lu (合肥路), the soundtrack of longtang living was underway: the clanging of spatulas against sizzling woks, screaming children sprinting down alleys, the clattering of mahjong tiles behind closed windows, loud conversations between elderly neighbors and blaring television sets echoing down darkened hallways.

Not to mention the incessant thuds of hard stone crashing through wood and concrete.

Residents were slowly bracing for the demise of one particular lane. Individual families – upon finalizing an agreed settlement – would move out, and contracted companies, often from Chongqing province, would lock up and later brick up the entrance to prevent squatters. Eventually, when approval papers trickled down from the relevant authorities, the workers would begin to tear apart the structures, knocking down walls and ripping up flooring to recycle wood, tiles and brick.

Standing outside a left-behind home, I watched a trio of middle-aged workers tidying up long planks of sturdy cherry-stained wood (“They don’t make these like they use to!” remarked a passing resident) and bundled them up to be transported for sale. By the entrance, a young boss bellowed into a mobile phone while angrily stabbing the air with his leather man-purse.

“Don’t you dare bullshit me! We agreed to deliver the goods tonight. What? What? How am I going to explain to my boss? Now you listen to me…”

Tense minutes ticked by as negotiations wound down to a reluctant compromise, after which the young man stormed off in a haze of cigarette smoke. I slipped through the doors into a noisy hive of sawing and heavy lifting. Debris covered every inch of the space. The interior was punctuated by a gaping hole in the wall, knocked through to facilitate the conveyance of the planks from the back of the house.

“Your boss sounds quite fierce.” I joked to a worker diligently sanding down the planks. His crinkly face broke into nervous laughter. I offered up some Double Happiness cigarettes I often carried with me to break the ice (I don’t smoke), which he politely refused.

Behind him, the pale green walls were covered in writing. On the right was a note by an anonymous Mr Li, “50 years old and an assistant professor seeking a suitable woman for marriage.” It was written carelessly, almost poorly but definitely lewd. “Enjoy drinking heartily. Ladies skilled in bed can call xxx-xxx-xxxx.”

As if emerging from his split personality, the writer subsequently graced the corresponding walls with two poems that I later discover were by prominent Tang poets, painted in practiced and smooth calligraphy strokes. He extracted two lines from a languorous poem in five-character sets, 山居秋暝 (“Living in the Mountain on an Autumn Night”) composed by Tang poet Wang Wei (王维) (699-759).

He shook his head, “I notice them in a few houses we’ve worked in around here. In fact, they run all the way to the back rooms. I may not have studied much but the writing is very nice.”

Behind him was another poem in seven character sets, 枫桥夜泊 (“A Night-Mooring Near Maple Bridge”) referencing said bridge near Suzhou’s Hanshan (or Cold Mountain) Temple where a bell tolls, penned by the prominent Tang poet Zhang Ji (张继) (715-779). The words were faded from dust and wear, and upon my post-discovery research, the words haunted me.

The poem painted a dark and chilly night where a melancholic traveler’s boat pulls into the banks outside of Suzhou and is struck by the cry of crows, a glimmer of a fisherman’s light and stirred by the temple’s ringing bell. A desolate scene, a friend remarked later. Just like the darkened room we were standing in, strewn with stone, wood and memories of a family we never met.

I wondered if the worker I met understood the significance of the poignant words (I certainly didn’t then). One could say it was poetic, almost ironic, that the calligrapher’s only audience was the wreckers and movers in a house with an expiration date.

Just then, the young boss returned. Annoyed at my presence, he walked aggressively towards me and barked, “What you doing here?” I reeled back, repulsed by the sourness of his harsh cigarette breath.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the worker quickly bow down his head and resumed sanding wood. I exited quickly, leaving behind the clamor and calligraphy swirling in my head.

11 Comments

SAT, I know I say this all too often, but YOU DO THIS SO WELL…the writing — languorously — moves from phrase to phrase, alternating timing, like chiming a bell, tapping a taut drum face, leading the reader through your graphs…it’s just…marvellous. I must have your books on the coffee table here so I can show my guests and visitors…proud to have these there…seriously…

I know this is a totally off-hand, slightly Luddite question, but with all of the smashing, dismantling, deconstructing, obliteration going on — are there still quite a few (hundreds? thousands? hundreds of thousands?) of shikumen still undergoing these brutal architectural rapes? You continue to find them, because you write about them and the idiosyncratic characters to be found in their vicinity or contributing to their smashing, but it’s because you know of them in advance or are your happening across these more of a happenstance sort of occurrence? I’ve always wondered…how do you plan a walkabout?

So Double Happiness is the key to the working man’s heart, eh? Do they taste good, at least, on the off chance you sampled one before?

This is getting crossposted right this instant…

ps I heard a great BBC FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENTS cast from 20.07.2013 in which one of them opines about what it’s like to the mother of a Singaporean-primary and high school attending daughter…this concept of chiesu (excuse me for the error) and the unwillingness to lose…now I see from where these aptitudes stem…

Sue Anne

You’re always very generous with your compliments, Adam. I have to confess, the shikumens (stone hedge houses) can look the same after you’ve spent an hour roaming through them. There are hundreds of them still, but they are rapidly being demolished and like the themese I have explored in this blog, I still feel conflicted about them. Sometimes, the state of them are really awful so it’s inevitable that they be flattened and rebuilt into taller and more modern buildings. Othertimes, the shikumens are so beautiful, it’s heartbreaking to see them in pieces on the ground. All of this is random, I sometimes pick a place to visit based on what I read around on other photographers’ blogs (mainly Shanghainese guys) but others are just coincidence.

I’d like to second the previous poster’s admiration for this moving piece. Thank you very much. Perhaps this sort of sadness, in contemplating the destruction of community and the ruthlessness of history, can only be expressed through poetry. There is no irony present as these old poems bear witness to this moment. Re Mr Mezel’s question, here are some more: In the passing of the last things of this life, is it possible to sense the noisy dust that accompanies destruction? Do you think there could be an Angel of Beauty who sits across the street and waits for the final brick to be taken away? Best wishes.

Sue Anne

Rob, Thanks very much for your note and your lovely, lovely poem, my first on the blog! I’m glad it has inspired you. As I mentioned to Adam, one feels conflicted between the necessity of modernisation (every urban centre goes through this – London, New York, Shanghai is no difference but China just has this ability to do it on such a large scale, it feels overwhelming, almost evil). So sometimes, I try to preface my posts by saying we all romanticize destruction when we don’t have to live in their prior state. So that’s an important caveat. But the Tang poems on the walls were a treat, I really didn’t pay much attention to their content until much, much later.

There’s no irony present
these old poems bearing
witness to the bulldozer
watching a poem on a wall
it was noisy to remember
this dumb dust this mess
& shall I believe my truth
that forever there will be
at least one Angel of Beauty
who sits across the street
drinking a double expresso
who waits on the last brick
it’s picked up & taken down
and she sighs right back
and she says God bless.

Dropped by your blog after a long while, and was happy to see you actively posting – in spite of the heat. Good translations of ancient poetry have always intrigued me (being language-challenged and such). Right on, girl!